In a press conference that included federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, President Barack Obama yesterday in effect continued the Bush administration’s “War on Science” by outlawing human cloning, didn’t he?

No seriously. Why not cloning? If we allow the creation of life and its destruction for scientific advancement, what’s the problem with cloning?

Is it a moral issue? After all the hyperbolic ranting that President Bush was anti-science because he mixed morality with science, isn’t Obama doing the same thing, just moving the line a little further down the field.

It’s likely that for Obama it’s not a morality issue at all but a polling issue. The word “cloning” doesn’t poll well…yet.(Embryonic Therapeutic Organ Replacement therapy or some such thing might poll better later.)

But where are the scientists screaming that Obama’s outlawing of cloning recalls the darkest days of The Inquisition when priests rounded up any scientist who owned a bunson burner or a telescope and burned them alive. By withholding funds for the scientific advancements that opponents call “cloning,” isn’t the Obama administration effectively dragging science back into the Dark Ages?

Hey, Obama has virtually surrendered in the War on Terror so maybe that frees up his administration to declare an all out “War on Science.”

In real terms, what’s the stark moral difference between ESC and cloning? I’m really not seeing one. And if Bush wasn’t allowed to mix morality with science why is Obama not meeting a sense of general outrage from the scientific community for doing the same thing.

Isn’t Obama’s calling cloning “dangerous, profoundly wrong” exhibiting a puritanical resistance to scientific advancements?

Can’t you argue that the world needs cloning? I can see the commercial now. Cue some celebrity with some illness and have him say in dark ominous tones.

“Mr. Obama, why won’t you let science help me? You tell the single mother of four children whose liver is failing that she can’t have access to the latest technology which would offer her a perfectly healthy liver which would likely not be rejected by her own genetically identical body. Tell the 15 year old boy who can’t play soccer anymore because he has asthma that he can’t have new genetically enhanced lungs from a clone.”

If the argument against cloning is their low success rates, the high frequency of genetic mutations, and shorter life spans aren’t those also the exact same arguments for publicly funding it. Because as the science progresses the risks associated with cloning will likely decline and science will be able to clone in a safer manner.

It could be argued that another great reason for public financing is to prevent a situation where wealthy elites have access to expensive clones while the poor will not. The objective of science must be “a clone in every basement,” right? Cloning simply increases the range of “choice” for people. I can see the motto now: “Choice. It’s not just for women, anymore.”

A number of religious organizations may have some hesitancy about clones but clones, as long as they’re never implanted in a woman’s uterus, are not considered in any way human, right? Heck, even Roman Catholic bishops in Connecticut have agreed to administer “contraception” in Catholic hospitals which occurs after fertilization but before implantation.

And if we do allow implantation, perhaps science could swear to keep the clones comfortable on a resort until needed. Hmmm…where could Obama find a resort that’s not being used? I got it. Gitmo.

The whole thing is hypocrisy on parade on the part of the scientists and the White House.